believe in yourself because you deserve to

Personal

It would be wonderful to have my own personal cheerleader & life coach to get me out of bed earlier for yoga, stop me from binge watching Netflix to write, constantly refill my water to make sure I drink it, and force me to exercise. But I don’t have that.

It’s easy to tell yourself you can’t do something if you don’t have the support.

I, for example, blame my lack of working on music on not having someone to write with and bounce ideas off of, because my ideas aren’t good enough on their own. I blame my lack of sharing my creations with the world on not having a camera and fancy editing software, but I have a phone and basic editing software.

What if we were to create and share, and then other creatives found us? Then we could collaborate.

I love doing yoga, but I’ve never completed a 30 day yoga challenge in 30 days. Something always gets in the way: I have to work late one night, I get invited somewhere and it sucks the time out of the day, etc.

Last week I was more determined than ever to complete a 30 day challenge. I was on day 10 when I got sick. At first I just had a sore throat, so I completed days 11 and 12, but then the night sweats and body aches started. I was too weak to roll over in bed, nonetheless hold myself in a downward dog.

That was 5 days ago. Today was the first day I felt well enough to complete day 13 of the challenge. I almost didn’t do it because I was so disappointed that I’d once again failed to complete it in 30 days.

That’s when I was reminded that it’s more about the journey than the destination, and I completed day 13.

Whatever goals you are working towards, it is inevitable that you will experience setbacks, but don’t let those stop you from pushing forward.

Maybe your original goal was 1 year and in the end it takes you 5, but at least after those 5 you get to say you did it. So much of life is trial and error. We don’t really know how long it will take us to do something until we try it.

You’ll get frustrated, angry, sad, and want to give up. Channel & use that emotion to keep pushing forward 👊🏽

Whether it’s a negative thing that you feel ruined your life or a positive thing that you long to relive, I think all of us have struggled with focusing on the past at one time or another.

The past cannot be erased and should not be forgotten. Memories drive a lot of our decisions – how do you know you love roller coasters? Because of the thrilling memory of your last theme park adventure.

That being said, it’s important not to dwell on the past. If you find yourself having thoughts of “this can never live up to that, so there’s no point in trying” take a step back and stop yourself. Say no to these thoughts.

I struggle with returning to music, because I was so good at my instruments in high school. I wrote an entire album that my friends loved. When I fell into depression, I didn’t touch my instruments for years. Now I’m back at a beginner level, and for a long time I would stare at my guitar and think, “I’ll never be as good as I was, so why bother?” And I didn’t. It sat there and collected dust for years.

Back to the roller coaster example, there had to be an initial decision to try it before the memory could be formed. I had to learn to play guitar and piano before I could write and share songs.

It’s possible to start again. Things are changing every day. New opportunities are popping up all the time 😊

Today’s quote is from one of the early pages of my new Self Journal, which you can check out here. It’s a combination journal and daily planner, specifically designed to help you reach your goals in 13 weeks.

I’ve been using it about 3 weeks so far, and don’t feel it’s practical to use as a planner long term, but love the journaling questions and goal setting features.

As the quote says, we are what we repeatedly do. The best way to begin taking steps toward your goal are to start news habits. You don’t have to start with every day, start with what makes you comfortable.

Maybe your goal is to exercise for 30 minutes every day, but if starting from no exercise it all, it may be more realistic for you to exercise for 30 minutes once a week. Once you can do that consistently, increase it to twice a week, and so on and so forth.

Self Journal encourages you to plan out every day and stick to a schedule, but that’s not always practical for everyone. For example, I can plan to be at work from 9-5 each day, but I’m not able to plan out specifically what tasks I’ll work on during the day because I have the type of job where I don’t know what’s going to hit my inbox until it does.

I also think trying to stick to a strict schedule runs the risk of over-planning and decreasing your productivity. For example, I’m writing a novel, and while I plan to work on it on the days I have no plans after work so I have more time to focus on the book, I can’t plan to be inspired. If I plan to spend an hour writing on Tuesday and then nothing comes to me, I end up beating myself up for not completing the task. So it makes more sense for me to set a set number of hours writing by the end of the week, but staying flexible with exactly when those hours take place.

My mom says it a lot because we have lots of Type-A people in the family who enjoy planning and organizing and like everything to be in it’s place and happen according to plan.

According to the life plan I made when I was around 8 years old, this is the year I’m supposed to get engaged. Haha. I’m also supposed to have published a book and be working on my second album.

The only thing I can tell 8 year old me I did successfully is complete the first album. But all the songs are in the demo stage, live on my phone/laptop, and maybe 20 people have heard them.

Plans are crucial to attaining your goals, but give yourself some wiggle room for other things to happen.

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked with who, like me, thought they would get a full time job right out of college. Because when we were younger everyone said “you have to go to college to get a job with a competitive salary.” So we thought that job and salary was the next step after graduation.

They don’t tell you how hard it is to find said job, how it takes months, sometimes years, to get there.

So when you find yourself off track from your plans…remember it’s okay to not have it all figured out. That’s what life is – endless days of figuring it out.

When I was about 10, my best friend’s little sister asked me to carry her. We were at a church picnic, she was tired and didn’t feel like walking down the steps. She was maybe 5 at the time, but I wasn’t a great deal bigger than her. I tripped while carrying her down the stairs.

Besides a small scratch on her arm, she was fine. She didn’t even cry. But I did. I refused to hold another child for a while after that. I stayed far away from babies.

Sometimes forgiving yourself is harder than earning the forgiveness of others.

This can really hold you back.

Whatever you did…it’s in the past. You can start again, you can rebuild, you can move forward. Grant yourself permission ❤️